Tuesday, 7 February 2017

A file on Islamic State’s ‘problem’ foreign fighters shows some are refusing to fight

A file on Islamic State’s ‘problem’ foreign fighters shows some are refusing to fight

IRBIL, Iraq — The documents in the Islamic State file hinted at signs of rebellion within the ranks of its foreign fighters. A
Belgian militant had a medical note saying he had back pain and would
not join the battle. A fighter from France claimed he wanted to leave
Iraq to carry out a suicide attack at home. Several requested transfers
to Syria. Others just simply refused to fight.
The documents on
14 “problem” fighters from the Tariq Bin Ziyad battalion — made up
largely of foreigners — were found by Iraqi forces after they took over
an Islamic State base in a neighborhood of Mosul last month.

At
its peak, the Islamic State drew thousands of recruits each month and
controlled about a third of Iraq’s territory, and the foreigners who
poured in from dozens of countries have been characterized as the most
die-hard fighters. But the group has steadily lost ground and appeal.

The militants are now besieged in the western half of Mosul,
once the biggest city the Islamic State controlled and the heart of its
self-proclaimed caliphate. But the group’s losses have triggered
concerns in Europe that disillusioned fighters might find their way
home.

“He doesn’t want to fight, wants to return to France,”
said the notes on a 24-year-old listed as a French resident of Algerian
descent. “Claims his will is a martyrdom operation in France. Claims
sick but doesn’t have a medical report.”

He was one of five fighters in the file listed as having French residency, or as originally from France.

More citizens from France have joined the Islamic State than from any
other country in Europe since 2011, when Syria’s popular uprising
against President Bashar al-Assad turned violent and fueled the rise of
extremist groups.
The French government reported a sharp decrease
in the number of its citizens traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the
group in the first half of 2016 but said that nearly 700 still remain
there, including 275 women and 17 minors.
The forms in the file
are marked with the year 2015 but appear to have been filled out later
as they specify the dates that some of the militants joined, which
stretch into 2016.
In addition to each militant’s name, country
of origin, country of residency, date of birth, blood type and weapons
specialties, the documents list the number of wives, children and “slave
girls” each had. A photo is also included. It was not possibly to
verify the personal information, but Iraqi officers who found the file
said they believe it is genuine.
Two men from Kosovo refused to fight and asked to move to Syria. One said he had head pain.
Of
the more than 4,000 foreign fighters who have left European Union
nations for Iraq and Syria, around a third have returned, according to a
report from The Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.
About 14 percent have been confirmed dead, while the rest remain
overseas or their whereabouts are unknown.

“People say that they
are the most motivated, but there are plenty of foreign fighters that
went and found that the IS experience wasn’t what they thought it would
be; they thought it would be a great adventure,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi,
an analyst specializing in militant groups who has compiled an online
database of Islamic State documents, some of which indicate similar
issues of morale.

The organization keeps meticulous records, leaving clues to its inner workings as the fighters are ejected from territory.
Iraqi
counterterrorism forces discovered the documents in a house in Mosul’s
al-Andalus neighborhood that was being used as an administrative base
for the Tariq Bin Ziyad battalion.
The militants were seen
removing documents and computers from the building, according to
neighbors, before they set fire to the building as Iraqi forces retook
the area, said Lt. Col. Muhanad al-Tamimi, whose unit found the
documents unscathed in a desk drawer.
“Those foreign fighters
are the most furious fighters we ever fought against,” he said. “When
those fighters refuse to fight it means that they’ve realized this
organization is fake Islam and not the one they came for.”

Iraqi troops faced a barrage of suicide car bombs and fierce resistance during the first month of their operations to retake Mosul
last year. However, after pausing to reorganize, the forces have made
rapid progress on the eastern side of the city this year.
Late
last month, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said his forces had
recaptured all neighborhoods of Mosul east of the Tigris River and that
the Islamic State militants had “collapsed quickly.”
Edwin
Bakker, a research fellow at the International Center for
Counter-Terrorism and a professor of counterterrorism at Leiden
University, said that fighters from Western European countries are
largely known to intelligence agencies, but that there is less
information on those from countries such as Bosnia and Kosovo.
With
open borders in Europe, these fighters might return home and stage
attacks on the continent, he said. But warnings of a “tsunami” of
returning foreign fighters are exaggerated, he said.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the numbers that have gone to live there and die there,” he added.
Another
30-year-old French national in the file is noted as having been
“involved in the departure of Abu Azzam al-Fransi and his wife from the
land of the Caliphate.” “Fransi” indicates that the fighter he helped
leave was also from France.

Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Assadi,
commander of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces, said there are many foreign
fighters in Mosul, and that foreign suicide bombers have been
responsible for many of the 350 car bombs launched toward their lines.
In
one Islamic State headquarters in the Dhubat neighborhood of Mosul, his
forces found a stash of passports — 16 Russian and four French. There
were also 20 blank Iraqi passports taken from Mosul’s passport
department, he said, speculating that the militants are forging them to
be able to leave the country.
Despite the recent rapid advances in eastern Mosul,
Iraqi generals still expect a bloody fight ahead. The western side of
the city, home to 750,000 civilians, is surrounded by Iraqi forces and
the Islamic State members still there will have little choice but to
fight or die.
“There are still a lot of people that are motivated,” Bakker said. “The majority is there to fight.”